b]My Complaints:[/b]1. Spoiled little children who have no concept of what makes a good game. Being very young and having no sense of history will have that effect I suppose.

2. Ignorant people who think that FFXI was the same complete, fleshed-out and highly polished gameplay experience that it is today when it was released. Can ANY ONE of you that are all whining about XIV honestly say you have been playing since JP release and that XIV falls short in comparison? Probably not. The game went to level 50, only Rank 5. No AF, no shadow lord, and 6 jobs to choose from. No NPC quests, crap textures, very few zones. The amount of things to do in this game compared to XI on release is staggering. All the things you guys love about XI that you think are lacking in XIV took YEARS to develop and polish.

But Baby wants his Bottle RIGHT FRIGGIN MEOW doesnt he?

What is Great about XIV that no one seems to appreciate:

1. FFXI was a blatant time-sink. SE made things take long just for the sake of taking long. Nothing was integrated. If you wanted money, you had to spend days upon days crafting, farming, porting, getting keys for noobs, whatever. The AH makes things a little bit easier, but guess what? THERE WAS NO AH in XI at first either. Ya, you dont have the equivilent of a Wal-Mart to go and one-stop shop, you have to seek it out, make it yourself, and barter to get it. Its a little more satisfiying that walking up to a till, lowballing the item till you get it.

But theres that whole Baby wants his bottle thing again. Very ugly.

Anyways, if you wanted to level, you did that. If you wanted to do quests, you did that. It was alomost impossible to do 2 at once. Just finished the quest you took all day doing and want your reward? Too bad, wait 24hrs just cuz we say.

Now I get xp when Im crafting, I get gil when Im questing, I get XP when Im crafting. I get mats and crystals while Im mining, and xp, and fame, and a gil reward when Im done! Need to tele back to the city? No problem just hit your menu and your there in 10 seconds.

XI had a different road for anything you wanted to accomplish. A different road for making money, for lvlin, for story, for everything.

All different roads, and many, MANY roadblocks in each road. Just for the sake of slowing you down, making you take longer so you will play the game longer so they make more money.

XIV not only removes the roadblocks, they made it all happen on just one road. No matter what you are doing, you will be improving and progressing in other areas. I get 1500XP for digging up a chunk of ore. I get 1000xp for making a copper ingot out of the stuff I just dug up.

I guess if you have no job or adult responsibilities FFXI is great. Personally, i dont have 8 hours a day to waste killing Crawlers so I can stack 12 silk threads so i can get the shoes I want. That whole situation is exactly why RMT is a rampant, unstoppable wildfire. Adults place a premium on time, and FFXI is a timesink. FFXIV is not.

SE has placed emphasis on being able to log in and enjoy GAMEPLAY in bite sized doses. Everytime I log in I have fun, because I can do what I want, it doesnt feel like a second job.

There WILL be an AH. There WILL be more quests. There WILL be more jobs, mobs, zones, and story. There WILL be a thousand more tweaks and balances, catered specifically to you, for your enjoyment. Just maybe give it a little time, yea?

SE is a powerhouse, professional, experienced game developer. They know what needs to be done, what the best time frame is to do it in, what works and what doesnt. I know in all your vast gaming experience you think you know what should be done, and how EASY it would be for SE to just HURRY UP AND GIMME MY BOTTLE ALREADY.

But, you don't. You get your bottle when SE says so. Because they know best, not you.

I stopped reading when the OP assumed that the people who criticize the game are young and lack a sense of history. 1. They're not. 2. Gaming is an evolving industry. Just because you could get away with something 10 years ago doesn't mean you can get away with it today.

Never confuse your inference as the listener for an implication of the speaker.

Good games are subjective like good food is subjective. You're not going to seriously tell me that there's not a psychological basis for why pizza is great and lutefisk is revolting. The thing about subjectivity is that, as subjects go, humans actually have a great deal in common.